Do You Miss Knobs and Dials and Switches?

[MattHooper]

Folks,

In this modern digital day and age, when so many of us have moved to digital playback, very often using some form of computer control via a touchpad, smart phone, keyboard or whatever to control the system…

…. Does anybody miss the look and tactile experience of using volume knobs/dials/switches, etc.?

Or do you still have those in your system?

For a while when I first switched to a digital server system, when I ripped all my CDs, and later added streaming, calling everything up and operating it via my smart phone was kind of a cool novelty. “ A new world!”

Over time for me the novelty wore off, and it started to feel like one more damn screen I had to interact with, after interacting with the phone all day long.

And don’t get me started on using a laptop or a keyboard to interact with an audio system.
There is no interface I despise more. It feels so kludgy (and perhaps reminds me too much of work).

Anyway, that’s one reason why I had a remote control custom-made for me with a big volume knob, and which could do some other switching in my system. It’s really nice to use in a tactile and aesthetic way, and it’s part of my break from the digital world:

Aside from that, of course, my pre-amplifiers have their own buttons or volume knobs. But they are in a different room which is why I need to use a remote.

How about you folks? Still doing the tactile physical knobs and dials at all?
Or miss it?

(And yes, I resisted calling this thread “ Show us your knobs!”)

 

[Doodski]

I miss the vintage Sansui look with all the knobs and switches.

 

[Blumlein 88]

Yes I miss knobs and switches. I suppose they actually cost a lot. If you have a computer or streaming source probably not best for that. For other parts it certainly is nice if they are high quality feeling knobs and switches.

 

[sam_adams]

No. However, they should have a purpose on more integrated or complicated devices in the event of failure of the ubiquitous remote control—just as a fallback.

 

[Mark1]

Yeah I miss buttons and mechanical switchgear, particularly direct preset buttons. I don't usually like using a touchscreen and holding a cell phone to control the audio. I like the feel and operation of a mechanical button or switch that one can operate without really looking at what they're doing or holding anything.

I got a new Yamaha receiver and like all newer ones there's no direct preset buttons on the front panel or the remote. The closest thing to direct presets it has is through the cell phone app. It's not the same thing, and it's not really set up ideally. It's like you have to go through a menu of swiping to get to the presets, then each time you select a preset it kicks you back to a previous menu or page. I like to surf channels and go through my presets quickly, which you can't with the cell phone app.

There are preset up and down buttons on the front panel and remote which would make direct presets not really necessary, but they're super tiny and for some reason only instantly change presets on FM and not with streaming presets. If there was a way to get SiriusXM and streaming presets up/down buttons to work like it does with FM, I'd love my new Yamaha receiver to death lol .

 

[Dimitri]

I would miss them terrilbly if I didn't still have them available !
My daily keyboard has a rotary volume control and a mute button so I can give ads the attention they deserve.
For me, just because a source is digital is no excuse to do away with knobs and buttons (hmmm remindsm me the early days of SDR radios where everyone was "high" on "using the mouse to control the radio" - as if that was a good thing.
Fast forward a decade or so...SDRs now look like regular radios, (with screens) AND knobs and buttons are baaaaack.!
Progress!!

 

[Martin]

Loved the looks and feel of my old Pioneer system:

I recently rediscovered I still have the TX-9800.

Martin

 

[TimF]

Imagine this, two big and kind of soft knobs balanced on the left and right sides of a glistening unit--knobs that murmur when you fondle them and that react oh so positively to your subtle and gross movements.

 

[AnalogSteph]

I recently rediscovered I still have the TX-9800.

Did you know that this model is an analog tuner with PLL grid locking? It employs a sampling mixer to generate (f_LO) mod (100 kHz), and the varicap diode based fine tuning traditionally used for analog AFC is used to create a VCO with a narrow tuning range. So this way a small amount of drift will be compensated with the LO remaining locked to a quartz-referenced 100 kHz grid. The small relative tuning range ensures that phase noise is only minimally worse, while at the same time the high selectivity of a mechanical capacitor frontend is being retained.

Early full PLL synthesizer designs tended to have a lot of phase noise due to a combination of tuning voltage being modulated by resistor thermal noise and a generally low PLL frequency, and the lower Q of varicap diode tuned RF circuits was at odds with the relatively hot RF preamps common at the time. It wasn't until the '80s that people clued in to the advantages of using inductors instead of resistors to feed the diodes their tuning voltage while blocking RF, and to the fact that a frontend could effectively still be low noise even without running high RF gain and signal voltages, aside from the introduction of RF AGC or at least fixed attenuators to handle cable levels.

Anyway, those nice weighted tuning knobs in good FM tuners are the one thing I do kind of miss. It's just that my remaining radio listening generally involves either my kitchen radio (old and knob but no flywheel) or playing web streams via my PC. (My bedside Kenwood KT-80 almost never gets used, let alone the KT-1100 that's in a cupboard in my parents' basement. The latter is the better tuner but I never particularly liked its kind of lean sound all that much. The older model is more pleasing in that regard, though I needed to take care of some dead/leaky coupling caps.) I don't mind interacting with my music and volume controls using a keyboard and mouse (or trackball for that matter) while I'm on the PC anyway, though having a physical volume knob is kind of nice now and then.

 

[Chrispy]

Not particularly. Just controls, not something to be put on a pedestal.

 

[restorer-john]

@MattHooper Do you remember the early-mid 1980s in HiFi?

We went from knobs and physical switches to electronic touch controls, up/down micro controlled with mimic style indicators and flat panels with little to no protrusions. Slider pots instead of rotary. Some brands did it well, others were just a mess.

Think of that beautiful Sansui above in the thread and then within a few years they had this atrocious thing:

Akai did it well, even in their midi range. Notice, not a knob in sight. And those awesome flow charts...

It was generally (not always) a horrible time stylistically for mid-fi and some hi-fi. Lots of plastic, space age laser stuff with flow charts illuminated diagrams on the front panels etc.

Then we thankfully went back to proper controls and clean designs for about 10 years until the wretched home theatre craze went up a notch and design went out the window again. We are just at the end of it IMO, peak adoption of stupid touch panels and useless indicators, fake VU meters and tons of lit-up garbage that just distracts from the music.

I eschew remote controls now. And I was a full-on early adopter of universal/learning remotes back in the late 1980s, programmable to control everything and anything (even my A/C) and any bit of HiFi with an IR window or link. Now I hate remotes for my HiFi. I love interacting with the gear and the physical music. No streaming for me. And I've tried it, often. It sucks the life out of high fidelity for me. The remotes are without batteries in their boxes or in the remote drawer.

I just bought a new dishwasher and it has bluetooth/wifi connection and its own app. Ridiculous. Clever for sure, but is this where we are in 2025? Of course, the first thing it did (brand new) was download a giant "security update" that took 15 minutes to download, install and reboot. And I get hundreds of recipes- wow that's useful. Remote control of everything. Suggesting to me when is the best time to turn on based on my usage. etc.

 

[Ralph_Cramden]

I don’t miss my old Marantz, Pioneer, and many other receivers I’ve had over the years, but I keep the Kenwood Supremes up and running. Those knobs and switches are all solid metal, no plastic inside. It makes a big difference in giving a quality feel.

 

[sanmateo]

I quite like my Yamaha a-s801 with its seven metaloid knobs and selectors. I use the loudness control often when playing something low in the background. The bass, treble, and balance knobs come in handy as well to tame particular source files.

 

[rationaltime]

 

[dualazmak]

Thank you for starting this impressive thread...

I (still) dare to use "integrated amplifiers (with knobs and dials!)" in my PC-DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier fully-active audio setup; please refer to post #931 on my project thread for the details of the latest system.

I wrote there as follows under the below spoiler cover;

Spoiler

Here in this post, please let me emphasize again about the pros and merits of relative gain (i.e. tone) control not only in digital domain but also in analog domain using pre-amplifiers or integrated-amplifiers (in my setup). I recently wrote again in my post #56 on a remote thread like these;
Yes, as for safe and flexible tone controls (or I can say "relative gain controls among the multiple SP drivers"), my stance (policy) at least, is that we are encouraged to utilize the "best combination" of "DSP configuration in digital domain" and "analog domain tone controls using HiFi-grade preamplifiers and/or integrated amplifiers".

We need to note (and to respect for) that analog domain tone controls (relative gain controls among the multiple SP drivers) give no effect nor influence at all on the upstream DSP configuration (XO/EQ/Gain/Phase/Polarity/Group-Delay). I believe that this is a great merit of flexible tone controls in analog domain. We know well, on the other hand, in case if we would like to do the "tone/gain controls" only within DSP configurations, such DSP gain controls always affect more-or-less on "XO" "EQ" "phase" and "delay" of the DSP settings which will leads you to possible endless DSP tuning spirals every time; within DSP configurations, XO EQ Gain Phase and Delay are always not independent with each other, but they are always interdependent/on-interaction.

Just for your possible reference, my DSP-based multichannel multi-SP-driver multi-amplifier active system has flexible and safe analog level on-the-fly relative gain controls (in addition to upstream on-the-fly DSP gain controls) for L&R subwoofers, woofers, midrange-squawkers, tweeters, and super-tweeters, all independently and remotely. My post here shows you a typical example case for such safe and flexible on-the-fly analog-level tone controls. This my post (as well as this post) would be also of your interest.

Of course, I know well that I (we) can also perform such relative gain control using DAC8PRO’s 8-channel output gain controllers. I do not like, however, to change the DAC8PRO’s output levels frequently on-the-fly (while listening to music) due to safety and inconvenience concerns; I like to keep DAC8PRO’s analog out gain level always at constant -4 dB which should remain to be usually “untouchable” in my case.

Let me share with you some photos and diagrams again on this thread.

As for the master volume control (and track jump) in digital domain within PC, I use two of this nice USB controller.

 

[DWPress]

Knobs, switches and buttons rock my world as well. To the immediate left of where I'm typing within easy reach is my Okto DAC8 Pro and MSB ADC along with a phono pre and some eye candy meter (the tube stuff - top shelf are all relics outside the audio chain). Aside from needing 8ch and AES input the major selling point was the big ol' knob for volume control.



Via a 50' XLR stage snake to this pile on the front wall between speakers, sorry - pre cable management pic and that funky light is gone, no knobs!



which powers these active XO 3-way beasts flying 6.5' off the floor.



or the little monitors that are better for videos or typing blah blah content here that I'm looking at right now.



No matter what, that one knob and buttons to my left rules them all and has a remote when I'm working about the shop.

Long live the knob!

 

[bluefuzz]

I like a good knob as much as anyone ... ... but to be honest I don't miss scratchy pots or switches that don't switch or pointless VUs and sundry christmas tree lights. I'm fine interacting with my music through a screen.

I have a couple of old Nagra reel-to-reels with eminently fondle-worthy knobs on which I can sate my mechanico-erotic lusts if needs be ...

 

[Waxx]

I do, but i realise enough that a lot of functions are hard to do analog. But an ideal setup should have physical source, volume, mono and eq knobs or dials and analog style vu meters, next to all the new digital tech that only can be done with a computer interface like dsp and so.

in reality my main setup has a mindsp flex (one dial to do it all + a remote and computer interface) and a pair of hypex based power amps (one power buttom), so knbs and dials are sparse. I still got (in a other setup) a marantz PM5004 integrated with all the knobs and a few turntables, but the rest is all digital done.

 

[Mart68]

I don't miss knobs and dials I still have lots:



Would never countenance buying anything with a screen and menus. Not in a million years.

 

[JeremyFife]

I control almost everything (audio) with the WiiM app and miniDSP remote, or upstairs with my laptop. I'm used to it now and it all works well.

I get what you mean though, my car still has physical knobs (nice rotary controller). I am not looking forward to the day when that's all some 'smart' touch screen. My wife's car has that - just not good.